The backside is now complete. The slightly overlit render doesn't show off all the detail but it'll do for now. I'll be working on the left side now, which has somewhat harder casing, but easier connections.

Hey nice looking notebook! I have been following this thread for a few days now as I am trying to figure out the best way to go about modeling computer ports/connections. How did you cut out all the holes in 'back01.jpg'? The only thing I can think of would be a Boolean but for some reason it doesn't seem like the best way. Did you then model each connection separately and then put them in place? Any insight into your process or tips would be appreciated, thanks. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for your comment amc. I used boxmodeling with smoothing for the bottom part of the notebook with all the holes it it. The smoothing creates nice smooth corners and edges so the model still looks good from up close.

Here's the non-smoothed wire of the backside (click for a larger view):

It's got a few 5-sided polygons, but they're not visible when smoothed so I'm not going to add even more edges if it isn't necessary (especially the cooling rib area is annoying in that sense).

All ports are modeled seperately, then positioned where they belong. I tried to maintain the same division in seperate parts as the real thing - that way, things like slight chamfering of edges between different parts will be visible.

Here are the svideo and usb ports:

As you can see they're quite detailed, but if you look at the usb you can see that not everything is modeled exactly like the real thing. That's because I'll never get so close to the model it will be visible, and modeling things like the bending and edges of sheet metal (for instance on the outside of the usb port) is incredibly hard and useless if no one is ever going to notice it anyway.

You can always use booleans if you like, but I think they're rather annoying as they usually mess up the mesh real bad. The only time when you should consider using booleans IMO is at the end after having meshsmooth applied, and you need to add one or two complex details that are near impossible to boxmodel.

Wow, thanks a lot. That was a really helpful post. I was experimenting at first and tried to cut out one of the holes using a Boolean, but you're right, it messed up the mesh. Don't why I didn't think of box-modeling and smoothing. Anyways, thanks again, I truly appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

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